It’s Sunday, and it’s so early most people are still in their PJs. But on the set of CBS Sunday Morning, a wide-awake Jane Pauley is making everyone laugh. The morning-TV icon, an Emmy-winning pioneer who made her debut as a Today show anchor at the incredibly young age of 25, immediately puts everyone around her at ease.

During Parade’s recent visit, she jokes with stagehands in between segments and practices her story intros like an opera singer warming up—right up until the moment the show’s trumpet-fanfare theme begins the broadcast of the CBS staple that has dominated Sunday morning ratings since it began airing in 1979.

It’s apparent that as Pauley, 68, settles into her second year of hosting the news magazine, she loves both her career and her life as the mom of three and grandmother of three and wife to Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau for 38 years.

“I’ve been uncommonly, eerily blessed in my life,” she says. “I’ve never had a bad boss, I’ve only worked for good shows. But, in all the years, this is the best. I’m accustomed to people telling me they love the shows I’ve worked on, but now they say one of two things: ‘It’s the best thing on TV’ or ‘It’s my favorite show.’”

Never too folksy, the show offers just the right antidote to today’s negative headlines, she says.

“There’s probably a sense of haven to it,” she says. “Charles Kuralt [CBS Sunday Morning’s original host] had a vision to create a unique program that was effortlessly curious and intelligent, without any pretension.”

Advice From Letterman

The Indianapolis native reflects back on her career, which began at the Today show in 1976, where she replaced Barbara Walters and went on to serve as co-host for 13 years before leaving the show in 1989 (she was replaced by Deborah Norville) and began anchoring Dateline NBC.

She then created The Jane Pauley Show in 2004, which lasted for one season. Her next step was to develop a new, original project on reinventing your life after 50, which ran as a series on the Today show for four years. In 2014, she joined CBS News as a CBS Sunday Morning contributor and substitute anchor before becoming host in 2016 after Charles Osgood retired.

Through it all, Pauley describes her trajectory as one in which surprising opportunities kept popping up.

“My career began preposterously in my 20s,” she says. “When I think back, I don’t know who that woman was. When I was Jane Pauley on the Today show, I was just a year or two into my life when I wasn’t still Janie. That Jane? Who was she?”

Despite her rapid rise, Pauley says she did her best to look credible even while feeling incredibly self-conscious and insecure.

She recalls appearing at a student event with David Letterman in Indiana when she was in her 20s. During his speech, Letterman talked about his own unexpected career success.

“He told the kids that success is like robbing a 7-Eleven: The money’s good, but you know you’re going to get caught,” she says with a laugh. “That’s as good a definition of imposter syndrome as any. At some point in our lives we all feel like we’re faking it and we’re going to get caught.”

(Susan Ragan/AP/REX/Shutterstock)

Today Pauley is about as far from those early days as possible.

“I’m not faking it now,” she says.

In fact, these days, what matters most to Pauley is that she’s never been more comfortable with who she is—and who she isn’t.

“I’m not apologizing for the things I’m good at and I’m not apologizing for the things I’m not as good at as other people,” she says.

One place she admits to not being top-notch? Her role as a grandmother to her three young grandsons.

“The other grandparents might be a little bit younger than I am, and that’s my excuse for not having the same stamina,” she says. “I’m OK with that.”

Life Takes a Turn

At age 50, her health took an unexpected turn. To treat a life-threatening case of hives, Pauley was given steroids, which caused both mania and depression. Subsequent treatment with antidepressants resulted in manic episodes. Her reaction to the steroids and antidepressants triggered a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, to which she had no idea she was genetically vulnerable.

Since her diagnosis, Pauley has become a vocal advocate for mental health issues. She speaks regularly on the topic of mental health and wrote in-depth about her experiences in her best-selling book Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue, published in 2004.

She lent her name to the Jane Pauley Community Health Center in Indiana, which opened in 2009 and helps underserved patients.

To stay healthy, she makes sure to get plenty of sleep. “I have to be careful,” she says. “For instance when we went to London, I did my best to sleep on the plane. I know changing time zones is a risk factor.”

Staying on her medication is imperative too. “I took it last night and I will tonight and every night,” she says. “It is what has enabled me to be productive. Since my diagnosis I had a daytime show, I wrote two books, I had my grandchildren and now I’m on Sunday Morning. The best part of my life happened after the worst diagnosis of my life.”

She believes her advocacy has been crucial to her overall health. “There is scientific evidence that giving support is as therapeutic as getting it,” she says. “I believe my advocacy is part of the reason I’m as productive as I have been able to be. I’m proud of it.”

Special Sundays

Growing up in Indianapolis, TV was not a big part of Pauley’s Sundays. It was all about church.

“My mother was the organist at church and my father was the elder,” she says. “After church, we’d go out for Sunday dinner, then straight to my grandparents’ house, which was on a farm.” Church also dictated travel plans. “We’d leave for Florida after church on Palm Sunday, because my mother had to play,” she says. “Then we’d drive overnight and return home for Easter Sunday because mom needed to play.”

As a young mom, Sundays were slightly different for Pauley. “I don’t know if I coined the word Sundaynightis, but it begins sometime in the afternoon when the light gets a little afternoonish and you realize the weekend is over,” she says. “Like my parents, Garry and I are creatures of habit. On Sunday nights we’d always go to a restaurant. That’s what my children [twins Rachel and Ross, 35, and son Thomas, 32] remember doing on Sunday evenings.”

Today Pauley is proud of being at this point in her career where she continues to explore and grow every Sunday. It’s something she hopes viewers experience too. “I’m so excited to share Sunday mornings with you. The show helps me discover new things, and it’s my hope that it helps all of us think about possibilities both big and small.”

Puzzle Lover

“I’m very grateful to my son Ross [Trudeau] who writes crosswords for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. He has opened up something for me. My standards are very low, I’m not a good puzzler, but it doesn’t feel unproductive. It’s better than online shopping.”

No, She’s Not Perfect

“A reader wrote to a magazine that her coping strategy was that she ‘stopped reading articles about Jane Pauley because her life was so perfect, her kitchen cabinets were probably orderly.’ Years later, I’m at a benefit and I meet a former magazine writer who wanted to apologize for something. It was that. She made it all up. I was so happy to be able to assure her that my kitchen cabinets were nothing to brag about!”

AMG/Parade Digital

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